Opinion: Striking down DACA would eliminate thousands of health care workers, thwarting America’s pandemic response
The health care community has a responsibility to anticipate worst-case scenarios and develop response plans for epidemics that may be years or decades away. It should model how outbreaks might cause shortages in medical supplies and devise protocols to compensate for them. It should plan for what would happen if those protocols fail and shortfalls in staff or equipment make it difficult to provide care to each and every patient.
Crises like Covid-19 are stark reminders of the importance of making such preparations. They also reveal the gaps in our planning, along with scenarios that were so strange or unimaginable that we failed to see them coming.
